Ölgerðin

The Icelandic brewing company Ölgerðin celebrated its 100th anniversary yesterday, according to this article on RÚV. It relates a brief history of the company, its founder and its products. It is interesting to note that beer was outlawed in Iceland from 1915 until March 1, 1989 (now known as Beer Day in Iceland), so the beer produced up until then was actually for export, not for local consumption. EDIT: I was informed that light beer (pilsner) with less than 2.25% alcohol was not part of the ban, and so was in fact available locally.

“Ölgerðin celebrated its 100th anniversary today. Historian Stefan Palsson says it is not unlikely that people, who used malt as a stomach remedy, had taken to mixing it with orange drink, since they may have considered it inappropriate to drink the stomach medicine with the Christmas meal.”

You have probably seen the word afmæli before meaning birthday – it is also used for anniversary. Also note the compound magalyf, formed from magi (stomach, belly) and lyf (medicine).

“However Ölgerðin did not produce soft drinks before 1930, and 25 years later, in 1955, Egils Orange Drink saw the light of day. ‘And just like here, it started out on a small scale. A sixteen year old boy was hired to mix up the ingredients and cap the bottles. That same boy, Sigurður Sveinsson, then invented Appelsín 25 years later in 1955, and it became the Icelandic national soft drink.'”

“Stefan says it isn’t known with any certainty when people started mixing malt with orange drink, but it was a known custom all over Europe to mix light beer with soda. Perhaps people felt malt was too expensive and resorted to mixing it as a way to make it last longer.”